Donald Trump has jettisoned Republicans’ long-standing “all of the above” approach to energy by using the US government to aggressively stamp out clean energy projects – particularly offshore wind turbines.
The scale of the intervention is remarkable – a total of nine already permitted offshore wind projects that were set to provide electricity to nearly 5m households and create around 9,000 jobs in the US are under investigation or have already been paused by the Trump administration.
Trump has barred any new solar and wind projects from federal land and waters, eliminated incentives for clean energy and, almost uniquely for a US president, called for an entire industry to be stopped in its tracks.
“Windmills – we’re just not gonna allow them, they are ruining the country,” Trump said last month. On Tuesday, Trump told the United Nations, without evidence, that “countries are on the brink of destruction because of the green energy agenda.”
The president has a long distaste for wind turbines, calling them “ugly”, “disgusting” and “garbage” and calling any support for wind and solar to help ameliorate the climate crisis “the scam of the century.”
This grudge has been aimed most pointedly at the US’s nascent offshore wind sector, with the Trump administration currently halting, delaying or investigating nine already permitted projects off the east coast – five of which are already under construction. In the past two weeks alone, officials have filed a legal motion to stop a wind project off Maryland and review another off Massachusetts.
Officials also halted Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island, which is 80% complete, although work was allowed to resume by a federal judge on Monday.
“Under this administration, there is not a future for offshore wind because it is too expensive and not reliable enough,” Doug Burgum, Trump’s interior secretary, told a conference in Italy this month.
The interior department, Burgum said at the conference, is “taking a deep look” at the five under-construction offshore wind farms – Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island, Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind, both off New York.
Officials have taken additional steps to impede certain projects. In a court filing this month, lawyers for the administration asked a federal judge to cancel the approval of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, saying they had identified an error.
Last week, they moved to block the SouthCoast Wind project off Massachusetts, and earlier they also announced they are reconsidering approvals for another wind farm off the Massachusetts coast, called New England Wind.
In order to squash projects that had already been approved, the Trump administration has variously claimed offshore wind turbines disturb whales, pose national security risks and impede search and rescue efforts, despite presenting little to no evidence of such harms.
A Department of Interior spokesperson said that work on Revolution Wind will resume but it will still be investigated over “possible impacts by the project to national security”.
The department ‘“remains committed to ensuring that prior decisions are legally and factually sound”, the spokesperson added.
This crackdown has rattled businesses and imperiled a sizable amount of power that was to flow from the offshore wind farms.
In total, the nine wind projects were set to deliver around 12.5GW of energy capacity, enough to provide power to almost 5m households. More than 9,000 direct and indirect jobs flowing from the projects are also at risk should they be halted, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.
“At least a third or maybe 40%, of building trade members, we are pretty sure, voted for this President and his administration … now thousands are losing work,” said David Langlais, who leads the Ironworkers Local 37, whose members were among the more than 1,000 workers whose jobs were threatened by the attempt to halt Revolution Wind in Rhode Island.
“The administration came out saying they’re supportive of working people, working Americans, but they just continue to show the opposite of that.”
The administration’s war on wind has had spurred chaos among developers. In June, the company behind a planned wind farm off New Jersey’s coast, Atlantic Shores, asked the state to cancel its contract after Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency yanked a necessary air permit for the project. The firms behind Empire Wind 2 off New York in January also cancelled their contract, citing economic concerns and supply chain issues.
It is unusual for the US government to attempt to shut down a project it has previously approved, even under a different administration. A further six offshore wind projects, promising a further 11.6GW of power, are still in the permitting phase and so will be even more vulnerable to being scrapped by the administration.
Experts have pointed out that renewables like wind and solar are often the cheapest sources of electricity, with a slowdown in US deployment set to further raise energy costs for American households. In New England, the grid operator has warned of potential power shortfalls, too, if the targeted offshore wind projects are scrapped.
“Halting construction and revoking permits on approved projects after years of thorough agency review will raise electricity prices for millions across the country, jeopardize billions of dollars in private investment, threaten our national shipbuilding, steel, and manufacturing supply chains, and undermine our nation’s energy security,” said Liz Burdock, CEO of Oceantic, the offshore renewable energy-focused organization formerly known as the Business Network for Maryland Offshore Wind.
The attack on wind is especially concerning amid the rising demand for energy caused by the growth of AI data centers, said Michael Sabitoni, general secretary-treasurer of the Laborers International Union of North America.
That strain has also raised energy prices, including for workers whose jobs are under threat. And no other power projects in New England are slated to bring more energy or jobs online, Sabitoni added.
“If you said you wanted to bring, for instance, a new nuclear plant online, do you know how long it would take to site that? It would take years.”
The fallout will take a major toll on local economies, said Sabitoni.
The onslaught on wind power has bewildered some conservatives who still adhere to ‘all of the above’, a term widely used by Republicans, including the Trump administration in its first term, over the past decade to denote an agnostic, free-market approach to energy.
Scientists have warned that fossil fuels must be steadily phased out to avert disastrous climate impacts. By contrast, Trump, who received large donations from the oil and gas industry during his election campaign, has invoked emergency powers, shredded regulations and boosted subsidies to force through more fossil fuel projects.
“It’s different from the first term,” said Heather Reams, chief executive of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (Cres), a conservative group that advocates for clean energy. “There’s no real precedence for this and it’s having a chilling effect across energy projects in general.”
Right-leaning Americans still overwhelmingly back the all of the above approach, polling released by Cres this week shows. A total of 85% of Republican voters support all of the above, the poll found, with nearly three-quarters wanting the US to use clean energy to help cut planet-heating pollution.
“We are seeing a big difference between ordinary voters and what’s happening inside the Beltway,” said Reams. “There’s this harsh turn against renewable energy from the White House, particularly offshore wind. We haven’t heard an economic reason for this, although we know that President Trump has not liked wind for a long time. It sounds like it is personal.”